Overkill

by Joseph Teller

  “Don’t look,” she warned him.

  Don’t look?

  He heard a faint zipping sound. Make that an unzipping sound. Though in the dark, it turns out, they’re hard to tell apart. A moment later her foot was back on his knee, this time heel-less.

  The physics of climbing onto another person’s shoulders are not that complicated. The climber, after placing one foot securely atop the climbee’s horizontally extended upper leg, swings the opposite leg over the climbee’s back and shoulders. Holding that first foot with one hand, and now grasping the second foot with his free hand, the climbee straightens himself up and into a standing position, all the while maintaining not only his own balance but that of the person comfortably perched atop his shoulders, as well.

  And that’s all there is to it, except for the rather obvious caveat that in order to achieve success, the first two steps must have been properly executed.

  If you’ve ever ridden a horse, you know how absolutely essential it is that in the initial process of mounting the animal, you place the correct foot in the stirrup. It doesn’t take all that much in the way of imagination to predict the outcome when the wrong foot is used instead. Now in all fairness to Katherine Darcy, it is true that horses are generally mounted—at least when humans are doing the mounting—in the daytime, or when sufficient ambient light is present to determine which way the animal happens to be facing.

  Katherine Darcy did not have that advantage.

  Which explains why, when she finally came to rest perched securely upon Jaywalker’s shoulders, the two of them were facing in very different directions. One hundred and eighty degrees different, to be precise.

  Even in the dark, they both recognized the problem immediately, though problem is hardly the word Jaywalker would have used to describe the situation. But as easy as it had been to get there, no ready solution presented itself for correcting things. Think back to the horse-and-rider analogy, if you will, and imagine the rider, saddled up but suddenly facing the tail end of the beast, attempting to turn around. Okay, now try to imagine it with Jaywalker’s head in the way.

  “What now?” asked Darcy.

  Jaywalker tried to answer, but his words came out unintelligible even to him. And it was no wonder; he was talking directly into what could discretely be described at Darcy’s lower lower abdomen, and every time he opened his mouth his lips kept getting stuck on bare flesh. He tried tilting his head back as far as he could. The result was substantial pain in the back of his neck and significantly less fun for his lips. But it did enable him to speak out loud.

  “Just a minute,” he said. “Hold on tight.” And he let go of her with one hand, in order to free it.

  “What are you doing?” she shrieked, her weight shifting suddenly as he bent at the waist, trying to, well, make an adjustment of sorts.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “What nothing?”

  “Relax,” he said. “It’s a guy thing.”

  He straightened up, resumed his two-handed grip and told her to reach up and feel around above her. “There should be a panel right in the middle of the ceiling,” he told her. “Either it’ll push up easily, or there’ll be screws to loosen it.”

  “I need you to move,” she said.

  “Which way.”

  “To the left.”

  He moved one step to the left.

  “No,” she said. “The other left.”

  Another complication that came with facing-in-opposite-directions syndrome, as they soon discovered, was the matter of “forward” and “back.” But once they’d gotten their commands and responses in synch, the rest turned out to be surprisingly easy. Within a minute or two Darcy had located and loosened the four thumbscrews that kept the ceiling panel in place, and pushed the panel itself upward and off to one side of the roof. Not only did that act succeed in releasing excess carbon dioxide and ushering in cooler—and presumably more oxygen-rich—air, it allowed for just a hint of bluish light to filter in, as well.

  It took some doing, but Jaywalker managed to lower Darcy to the floor of the elevator almost without mishap, the relevant portions of them being sufficiently cushioned by the carpeting as to produce only full-throated laughter and a measure of lingering tenderness. Or perhaps the tenderness might better be ascribed to the events that would transpire over the next several hours. The carpeting, it would turn out, was in fact padded.

  But not all that padded.

  And had it not been for intervention—not so much of the divine sort as the judicial—it’s highly likely that Katherine Darcy and Jaywalker would have spent the remainder of the morning happily engaged in those very same events. From Jaywalker’s perspective, it would have been all he could have asked for, understanding as he did how vastly over-rated sleep and sustenance tended to be. And if Darcy’s words and deeds were any indication at all, then the same could safely be said of her.

  But intervention did indeed intervene.

  As suddenly as they’d gone out at midnight, the lights came back on, the air-conditioning kicked in, and a humming noise started up. Almost immediately, the elevator began descending. As blinded by the brightness as he had been by the earlier darkness, Jaywalker began groping around for his clothes, grabbing his pants, his shirt and what he thought was a pair of black socks.

  “That’s mine,” Darcy snapped.

  “Is not.”

  “Is, too,” she said. “Unless you wear a 34B.”

  He handed it over.

  By the time the elevator settled to a stop at the first floor, the two of them were more or less dressed. And although they stood side by side, facing the door as nonchalantly as they possibly could, as though simply waiting for it to open so they could be on their separate ways, they wouldn’t have fooled anyone with eyes to see. Hell, they wouldn’t have fooled Stevie Wonder.

  But it wasn’t Stevie Wonder who was standing there when the door opened. Knowing that much was the easy part. For Jaywalker, the hard part was trying to place the familiar-looking man staring back at him, key in hand. At least he thought it was a man, though the women’s sunglasses and the platform heels gave him pause.

  And then it dawned on him.

  “Judge Sternbridge,” said Jaywalker, out of sheer amazement. Because it was in fact Miles Sternbridge, the head of the disciplinary committee. Miles Sternbridge, who’d meted out Jaywalker’s three-year suspension and had just last week dropped by Harold Wexler’s courtroom to make sure Jaywalker had been behaving himself. Miles Sternbridge, in platform heels.

  And yet, if Jaywalker wasn’t mistaken, here was Sternbridge screaming at him.

  “This is a private elevator! For judges only! What are you doing on it? And you’re with another of your hookers, I see!”

  Jaywalker could feel Darcy about to say something, or perhaps explode, alongside him. He put a hand on her arm, first to quiet her, then to steer her past Sternbridge and toward the door that led out to the lobby. Only then did he turn back to address the judge.

  “Nice shoes, your honor.”

  25

  YES IT IS

  The read-back went even worse than Jaywalker had anticipated. He’d arrived in court uncharacteristically late, though still early by normal standards. Several court officers went out of their way to comment that he looked rested and seemed in unusually good spirits, at least for him.

  Following the elevatorus interruptus episode and the standoff with Judge Sternbridge, Katherine Darcy and Jaywalker had bade each other good-night and headed to their respective homes. Famished, Jaywalker had stopped off at an all-night pizza joint and inhaled three slices. It was times like that when even he had to admit that living in the big city had its advantages. Once back at his apartment, he’d undressed, pausing only momentarily to wonder where his socks had gone, fallen onto his sofa and slept like a baby for the first time in weeks, if only for a few hours.

  As for Katherine Darcy, she, too, looked just fine and seemed in good spirits, but there was noth
ing new there. And each time she made eye contact with Jaywalker she quickly looked away, obviously afraid she’d burst out laughing.

  But none of that made the read-back any easier to listen to. Even in the rapid-fire monotone of the court reporter, the testimony of Magdalena Lopez, Wallace Porter and Teresa Morales was nothing short of devastating. Each of them had recounted how Jeremy, gun in hand, had chased Victor down and delivered the final shot at point-blank range. Lopez had described how the two of them had moved to “a different spot” just before that had happened. Porter recalled how Jeremy had chased Victor and then “shot him like three more times.” And when Victor had fallen to the ground, Jeremy had “picked him up by the collar and he shot one or two more times at him.” But it was Teresa’s version that stung the most.

  I told Victor, “Run, run!” And when he ran, the guy shot him, and Victor like went down on the ground. Then he got up, and the guy shot again, and it hit the street. Then Victor ran again, inside the park, around a bench. But he tripped. And then the guy just walked over, grabbed him and killed him.

  And since the read-back ended right there, the silence that followed it was absolutely deafening. Finally Judge Wexler turned to the jurors. “You may retire to continue your deliberations,” he told them, and they filed out of the courtroom. Then he told the lawyers to approach the bench.

  “Still want to offer him the manslaughter plea?” he asked Darcy.

  She seemed to think for a moment. She had to know how close she was to a guilty verdict. She could hang tough now if she wanted to, holding out for a conviction on the murder count. But after a moment she said, “Sure, why not?”

  “Talk to your client,” Wexler told Jaywalker. “Man One, fifteen years. Right now, before it’s too late.”

  Jaywalker glanced up at the clock, saw it was 10:22 a.m.

  He walked back to the defense table, sat down and began explaining things to Jeremy. Not only were they still offering him the manslaughter count in the face of a near-certain conviction, he said, but Wexler himself had softened and come down to fifteen years, by far the best offer yet.

  “How much would I have to do?” Jeremy asked.

  “Twelve,” Jaywalker estimated.

  Jeremy smiled his sheepish smile. “If it’s okay with you,” he said, “I’d rather take my chances with the jury.”

  Jaywalker tried his best to convince Jeremy that from all indications, the jurors had turned against him. Even if they’d begun their deliberations looking for some way to acquit him—and the intent-to-kill note had suggested just that—by now they’d moved on and had come to view the final shot the same way the prosecution did, as pure overkill.

  Jeremy shrugged, smiled again and said, “Still…”

  Jaywalker got Wexler’s permission for a court visit. The court officers obligingly cleared the front row of spectators, moved Jeremy’s chair to the solid wooden railing, placed another chair on the audience side of it, and allowed first Carmen and then Julie to speak with Jeremy for a few minutes. The idea was for them to talk him into doing what Jaywalker had been unable to do.

  They couldn’t.

  Jaywalker tried once more, before catching the judge’s eye and shaking his head back and forth. Wexler stood up and left the courtroom without comment. Jaywalker looked at the clock—10:51 a.m. He guessed he’d be home by one, two at the latest.

  He was wrong.

  The buzzer sounded at 11:33 a.m. One buzzer, not two. Though in the two seconds it took to determine that there wouldn’t be a second one, Jaywalker felt his heart go into serious fibrillation. Or maybe a lost butterfly had strayed up and into his chest to flap its wings in panic. He turned to Jeremy and said, “Relax,” and they shared a laugh at the absurdity of the notion.

  We, the jury, would like to know if there is any way we can send the defendant a message that what he did was absolutely wrong, and criminal according to the law. At the same time, some of us strongly suspect that the defendant’s actions were out of character and feel it highly unlikely that he will repeat them, or similar criminal acts, in the future. How can we send that message without violating our oaths as jurors?

  William Craig

  Jury Foreman

  “You can’t,” Harold Wexler told them once they were back in the jury box. “You’re not here to send the defendant or anyone else a message. Your job, and your only job, is to make a determination as to whether the defendant’s guilt on each count of the indictment has been proven to your satisfaction or not. Period. As for punishment, that is a matter that is solely within the province of the court. Or to put that into plain English, that’s my job.

  “Now let me say this,” he continued, removing his glasses and looking up from his notes. “Despite rumors circulating to the contrary, I am a human being. I listened to the same testimony that you did. I have read your most recent note and understand your concerns. You may rest assured, each of you, that if and when it comes time for me to impose sentence upon Mr. Estrada, I will take into consideration all of the facts and circumstances of this very tragic case.

  “I trust that answers your question,” he told them. “Now you may retire and resume your deliberations.”

  Not that Jaywalker hadn’t argued long and hard against what Wexler had proposed to say. Wrapped in all those comforting words was an implicit promise to treat Jeremy with not only understanding but leniency. But sentencing wasn’t “solely the province of the court” at all. By imposing strict minimum terms, the legislature had made it very much its province, as well. Wexler could go on as long as he liked about being a human being, understanding the jurors’ concerns and considering all aspects of “this very tragic case,” but murder sentences still began at fifteen to life, and first-degree manslaughter at five years, which Jeremy could surely forget about, having just turned down fifteen on a plea. Therefore, Jaywalker contended, the judge was playing fast and loose with the jurors, lulling them into thinking Jeremy would get at most a slap on the wrist if they were to convict him, when in fact a lengthy prison term awaited him.

  “You have your exception,” Wexler had told him. Which in layman’s terms translated into “Shut up and sit down.” And the fact was, as duplicitous as the judge was being, he was standing on pretty solid ground, and he’d no doubt known it. The genteel way in which he’d answered the jurors’ question had hewed closely enough to the law—which did indeed leave sentencing up to the court and not the jury—that it would no doubt satisfy the concerns of any appellate judge reviewing the statement long after the conviction.

  So forty minutes later, when the buzzer sounded not once, but twice, nobody in the courtroom was surprised. Not Jaywalker, certainly, who’d known precisely what would happen next. Not Katherine Darcy, who looked sympathetic to his concerns but obviously felt powerless to do anything about them. Not the court officers, who even as they mumbled that Jaywalker had been shafted—which wasn’t quite how they phrased it—called for reinforcements, a guilty verdict being a time when even the most docile of defendants tended to act out unpredictably. Not Harold Wexler, who made a point of loudly asking the clerk what a convenient sentencing date might be. Not Carmen or Julie, who sat in the audience hugging each other, sobbing softly. Not even Jeremy, who for once lowered his head and seemed intent on studying the floor, the sheepish smile finally gone from his face.

  “Mr. Foreman, please rise.”

  As he had on each previous occasion, William Craig stood. At the defense table, so did Jaywalker and Jeremy. By now they knew the ritual well enough that they no longer waited to be asked.

  “Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?”

  “Yes, we have.”

  In his right hand he held a single sheet of paper, called a verdict sheet. It listed the different counts of the indictment in order, by number and crime charged. Jaywalker knew from years of experience that whatever Mr. Craig were to do with it next would be a tell, an indication whether the jury had convicted Jeremy of all twelve counts or ju
st some of them. If it was all, Mr. Craig would have no need to refer to the sheet; he could simply say the word “Guilty” each of the twelve times he was asked. So, too, if all of his responses were to be “Not guilty.”

  “With respect to the first count of the indictment,” said the clerk, “charging the defendant with the crime of murder. How do you find the defendant, guilty or not guilty?”

  William Craig lifted the verdict sheet and looked at it. So it was to be a split decision, Jaywalker immediately knew, a mix of convictions and acquittals. Guilty of murder but not manslaughter, for example. Or, God willing, the other way around. It had come down to that, Jaywalker the atheist praying for the compromise verdict he’d begged the jurors not to settle on.

  “Not guilty,” said Mr. Craig.

  Jaywalker exhaled ever so slightly and thought he felt Jeremy do the same alongside him. So it was going to be a manslaughter conviction. A victory of sorts, one most lawyers would be thrilled with, given how close they’d come to a murder conviction.

  “With respect to the second count of the indictment,” said the clerk, “charging the defendant with the crime of manslaughter in the first degree. How do you find the defendant, guilty or not guilty?”

  “Not guilty.”

  A muffled cry came from the spectator section directly behind Jaywalker. Carmen or Julie. The judge banged his gavel, harder and more angrily than Jaywalker would have thought necessary.

  Nine more times the clerk asked William Craig how the jury had found the defendant, of second- and third-degree manslaughter, reckless endangerment, menacing, two degrees of assault and three degrees of unlawful possession of a deadly weapon. Nine more times Mr. Craig, still checking his verdict sheet, spoke the words, “Not guilty.”